September 11 8am-8:30am
''This is a new article. As such is has been set to unassessed. Category:Content (8:00 a.m.) September 11, 2001: Intelligence Committee Chairs Meet with ISI Head and Possible 9/11 Attack Funder as the Attack Occurs Around 8:00 a.m., on September 11, 2001, ISI Director Lt. Gen. Mahmood Ahmed is at a breakfast meeting at the Capitol with the chairmen of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, Senator Bob Graham and Representative Porter Goss, a 10-year veteran of the CIA’s clandestine operations wing. Also present at the meeting are Senator Jon Kyl and the Pakistani ambassador to the US, Maleeha Lodhi , as well as other officials and aides. (Goss, Kyl, and Graham had just met with Pakistani President Pervez Mushrraf in Pakistan two weeks earlier (see August 28-30, 2001)). 9/14/2001; WASHINGTON POST, 5/18/2002 Graham and Goss will later co-head the joint House-Senate investigation into the 9/11 attacks , which will focus on Saudi government involvement in the 9/11 attacks, but will say almost nothing about possible Pakistani government connections to al-Qaeda and the 9/11 attacks (see August 1-3, 2003 and December 11, 2002). POST, 7/11/2002 Note that Senator Graham should have been aware of a report made to his staff the previous month (see Early August 2001) that one of Mahmood’s subordinates had told a US undercover agent that the WTC would be destroyed. Some evidence suggests that Mahmood ordered that $100,000 be sent to hijacker Mohamed Atta (see October 7, 2001). Graham will later say of the meeting: “We were talking about terrorism, specifically terrorism generated from Afghanistan.” The New York Times will report that bin Laden is specifically discussed. BEACH PRESS JOURNAL, 9/12/2001; SALON, 9/14/2001; NEW YORK TIMES, 6/3/2002 The US wants more support from Pakistan in its efforts to capture bin Laden. However, Mahmood says that unless the US lifts economic sanctions imposed on Pakistan and improves relations, Pakistan will not oppose the Taliban nor provide intelligence and military support to get bin Laden. He says, “If you need our help, you need to address our problems and lift US sanctions.” He also encourages the US to engage the Taliban diplomatically to get them to change, instead of isolating them. Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid will later comment, “It was absurd for Mahmood to insist now that the Americans engage with the Taliban, when Pakistan’s own influence over them was declining and al-Qaeda’s increasing.” Zamir Akram , an accompanying Pakistani diplomat, leaves the room for a break. While outside, he sees a group of Congressional aides gathered around a television set. As Akram walks up to the TV, he sees the second plane crashing into the World Trade Center. He immediately runs back to the meeting to the tell the others. But even as he gets there, a congressional aide comes in to say that Capitol Hill is being evacuated. The aide says, “There is a plane headed this way.” Mahmood and the rest of the Pakistani delegation immediately leave and attempt to return to the Pakistani embassy. But they are stuck in traffic for three hours before they get there. 2008, PP. 26-27 (8:00 a.m.) September 11, 2001: Computer Specialists in WTC for ‘Emergency Drill’ An “emergency drill” has been scheduled for today, to take place on the 97th floor of the WTC South Tower. YORK TIMES, 3/31/2006; NEW YORK TIMES, 4/1/2006 A team of technology consultants from California is visiting investment firm Fiduciary Trust for this drill. (Fiduciary Trust has offices on the 97th floor.) TODAY, 9/13/2001; DWYER AND FLYNN, 2005, PP. 77; NEW YORK TIMES, 3/30/2006 No further details are reported as to what it entails, or who the technology consultants are. However, California-based software company Oracle Corp. will later report that six of its consultants were working on the 97th floor of the South Tower on 9/11 and are subsequently missing. So presumably these were the workers involved with the drill. 9/13/2001; ASSOCIATED PRESS, 9/14/2001 (8:00 a.m.) September 11, 2001: Larry Silverstein Doesn’t Go to WTC Due to Doctor’s Appointment WTC leaseholder Larry Silverstein is supposed to be working today in the temporary offices of his company, Silverstein Properties, on the 88th floor of the North Tower. However, at his Park Avenue apartment, Silverstein’s wife reportedly “laid down the law: The developer could not cancel an appointment with his dermatologist, even to meet with tenants at his most important property.” YORK OBSERVER, 3/17/2003; NEW YORK MAGAZINE, 4/18/2005 He is therefore not at the WTC when it is hit, and first hears of the attacks when an associate calls him from the lobby of one of the WTC buildings. DEAL, 1/2004 Two of Silverstein’s children—his son, Roger, and daughter, Lisa—work for his company and have been regularly attending meetings with WTC tenants at Windows on the World (the restaurant at the top of the North Tower). Yet this morning they are running late. According to the New York Observer, “If the attack had happened just a little later, Mr. Silverstein’s children would likely have been trapped at Windows.” YORK OBSERVER, 3/17/2003 Fifty-four of Silverstein Properties’ 160 staff are in the North Tower when it is hit, and four of them die. AND MAIL, 9/7/2002 Silverstein signed the lease on the WTC less than two months previously, and later will attempt to get $7 billion in insurance for the destruction of the towers (see July 24, 2001). Entity Tags: Larry Silverstein Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: All Day of 9/11 Events, World Trade Center (8:00 a.m.) September 11, 2001: Former President George H. W. Bush Heads off After Spending Night at the White House Former President George H. W. Bush, along with former First Lady Barbara Bush, leaves Washington, DC, by private jet, bound for a speaking engagement in St. Paul, Minnesota. The Bushes spent the previous night at the White House. They had flown to Washington the previous day to attend several meetings and a dinner. One of the meetings attended by the former president was the annual investor conference of the Carlyle Group, which was also attended by Shafig bin Laden, one of Osama bin Laden’s brothers (see (9:00 a.m.) September 11, 2001). They are later informed of the WTC attacks while on their jet. Due to all planes being grounded, they have to land in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. NEWS, 11/1/2002; CNN, 10/25/2003; NEWSWEEK, 10/27/2003 Entity Tags: George Herbert Walker Bush Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: All Day of 9/11 Events, George Bush (After 8:14 a.m.-8:38 a.m.) September 11, 2001: Flight 11 Pilot Repeatedly Pushes Talk Back Button At some unknown point after the hijacking begins, Flight 11’s talkback button is activated, which enables Boston flight controllers to hear what is being said in the cockpit. It is unclear whether John Ogonowski, the pilot, activates the talkback button, or whether a hijacker accidentally does so when he takes over the cockpit. A controller later says, “The button is being pushed intermittently most of the way to New York.” An article later notes that “his ability to do so also indicates that he is in the driver’s seat much of the way” to the WTC. Such transmissions continue until about 8:38 a.m. SCIENCE MONITOR, 9/13/2001; MSNBC, 9/15/2001 (8:16 a.m.-8:28 a.m.) September 11, 2001: Four Calls Made From Flight 11 by Unknown Individual, Possibly Flight Attendant Sara Low Sara Low. Family photo / Associated Press According to a computer presentation put forward as evidence in the 2006 trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, an unknown person—or persons—makes four calls from Flight 11. These are at 08:16:50, 08:20:11, 08:25:31, and 08:28:33. The calls do not appear to have gone through properly: they are each described as “On button pressed, no call made.” Though the trial exhibit identifies the caller(s) only as “Unknown Caller,” other evidence suggests that at least one of the calls is made by—or on behalf of—Sara Low, who is one of the plane’s flight attendants. Her father, Mike Low, later says he learned from FBI records that his daughter had given her childhood home phone number in Arkansas to another of the flight attendants, Amy Sweeney, for her to report the hijacking. Low speculates that the reason his daughter gave this particular number was that she had just moved home, and so, in the stress of the hijacking, her childhood phone number was the only one she could remember. The Moussaoui trial presentation lists Sweeney as making five calls from the plane. However, it says these are all to the American Airlines office at Boston’s Logan Airport. DISTRICT COURT FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF VIRGINIA, ALEXANDRIA DIVISION, 7/31/2006; NEW YORK TIMES, 9/4/2007 Sara Low lets Sweeney use her father’s calling card in order to make these five calls from an Airfone (see 8:22 a.m. September 11, 2001). YORK OBSERVER, 6/20/2004 Entity Tags: Sara Low, Madeline (“Amy”) Sweeney Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: All Day of 9/11 Events, Flight AA 11, Alleged Passenger Phone Calls 8:20 a.m. September 11, 2001: Flight 11 IFF Signal Transmission Stops Flight 11 stops transmitting its IFF (identify friend or foe) beacon signal. 9/17/2001 Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: All Day of 9/11 Events, Flight AA 11 (8:20 a.m.) September 11, 2001: Flight 11 Veers Off Course Flight 11 starts to veer dramatically off course. It now heads in a northwesterly direction toward Albany, New York. 9/11/2002 Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: All Day of 9/11 Events, Flight AA 11 8:20 a.m. September 11, 2001: American Airlines Dispatcher Learns of Problem With Flight 11 At the American Airlines operations center in Fort Worth, Texas, the flight dispatcher responsible for transatlantic flights receives a communication from an American Airlines flight traveling from Seattle to Boston, informing her that air traffic control has asked the aircraft to try and contact Flight 11. Under FAA rules, dispatchers licensed by the agency are responsible for following aircraft in flight. Once a plane is in the air, a dispatcher must monitor its progress, relay safety information to the captain, and handle any problems. American Airlines assigns a dispatcher to each of its flights. This is the first indication the dispatcher receives notice of any problem on Flight 11. MORNING NEWS, 6/13/2002; SYDNEY MORNING HERALD, 6/14/2002; 9/11 COMMISSION, 8/26/2004, PP. 9 AND 86 However, Flight 11 is not a transatlantic flight, so why this particular dispatcher is notified is unclear. Entity Tags: American Airlines Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: All Day of 9/11 Events, Flight AA 11 (8:20 a.m.) September 11, 2001: Flight 77 Takes Off 10 Minutes Late Flight 77 departs Dulles International Airport near Washington, ten minutes after its 8:10 scheduled departure time. POST, 9/12/2001; CNN, 9/17/2001; GUARDIAN, 10/17/2001; ASSOCIATED PRESS, 8/21/2002; 9/11 COMMISSION, 6/17/2004 Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: All Day of 9/11 Events, Flight AA 77 refs Category:Timeline